First Look: Tamanna’s trailer opens up a summer full of movies

Upcoming Lollywood
production Tamanna has released its teaser trailer in cinemas across Pakistan,
marking the beginning of a summer lined up with a variety of exciting movies
from both Bollywood and Hollywood. Starring Omair Rana, Salman Shahid, Mehreen
Raheel and Feryal Ali Gauhar, the film has finally been scheduled for a
post-Eid release, following several delays.

“In other countries
you have a whole network in which you can pitch your film, be it a
studio-oriented model or an independent model. Unfortunately, we have none of
that here, at all,” says producer Sarah Tareen, who is also the founding member
of Pakistan New Cinema Movement.

“You really have to
be your own sales agent or the middle man and pretty much do your own thing. As
a result, we worked within our resources to maximise the quality of our
production, the story and the appeal of the film,” she adds.

Regardless of the
constraints, Tareen and her director Steve Moore, have been able to work
through the delays and gain the support of people, such as music composer Sahir
Ali Bagga and renowned singer Rahat Fateh Ali Khan for the soundtrack. The
interesting part about the film is that it is inspired by Anthony Schaffer’s
1970 stage play, Sleuth.

Although the film
draws inspiration from an English play, it has been made keeping in mind the
preferences of the local audience, with characters set in modern-day Lahore and
a story based on the reluctance of a young man to accept feudal dominance.
Tareen explains that the film’s story was chosen for the Pakistani cinema
because of the cultural parallels that were distinctively visible in the play
that, in turn, took the film into a cynical, thriller genre, making it
Pakistan’s first noir film.

Adapting a classic
story from the West provides an interesting base for the film. Moore says that
the cultural nuances and the base of the story are well-connected to the local
culture. He further explains that the project has been a very collaborative
venture in which changes and improvements have been made collectively. “The
changes that we have made to the original story of Sleuth are very culture-
based; I could have never made these in America,” says Moore. He adds that many
film-makers talked about the idea of such a movie and how it should have its
own feel, which is often the key to such films being so wonderfully unique.

The director
emphasises that the delays that occurred in the end, for various reasons, ended
up helping the film for the better because it meant that there was more time
available to refine it and make the story more suitable for Pakistani viewers.
“We didn’t just write the script in two months and make the film; we had quite
a lot of serious delays. But these delays meant that we had a long time to work
on the script which turned out be a big advantage for us,” he admits.

“The story is
good,” he continues, adding that the audiences will not have to worry about the
fact that it is based on a classic play.
“I may make mistakes as a film-maker, that is just their [people’s]
opinion, but they cannot say that the story itself is weak. It would be like
saying Macbeth or King Lear is weak,” he adds.